3:10 to Yuma, James Mangold (2007)

Very nicely done! I think the great Mann would have appreciated this nifty little western, given its moral ambiguities, suggestions of homoerotic obsession, neurotic masculinity, and copious gunfire, but no way would he have let this completely stupid ending go out the door with his name on it.

Nice to think of how Jimmy Stewart would have rocked the Christian Bale, role, too. It’s kind of hard to buy the gorgeous and self-possessed Bale as anything anywhere near ineffectual, so when the movie requires him to come into his own, you’re sort of like, dude, when weren’t you already totally revoltingly awesome?